Sept. 23-29, 2024

Weather | 9/23, 0.27" rain, 57°, 53° | 9/24, 0.58" rain, 59°, 69° | 9/25, sunny, 53°, 75° | 9/26, sunny, 52°, 75° | 9/27, cloudy, 59°, 69° | 9/28, cloudy, 59°, 80° | 9/29, sunny, 56°, 80° |

• Monday, 9/23: Misty Day
  
  • We experienced a lot of misty rain and wet weather.
    
  • I turned the blade around on Mary's lawn mower so that the correct cutting surface was in place. I also changed oil on the mower's engine.
    
  • I searched online and found pH paper for wine, which is rated at 2.7 to 4.3. It's made by Hydrion, which I've found to make the most accurate pH testing strips.
    
  • Mary spotted a new bird, an American redstart, out of the west living room window. The bird was clambering around in the Kieffer pear tree with some tuffed titmice. HERE is a link to that bird.
    

• Tuesday, 9/24: Cataract Pre-op
  
  • An early morning rain gave us over a half inch of precipitation.
    
  • I ran to Quincy for a pre-op appointment with the cataract eye surgeon. They performed several eye measurements. Due to my severe astigmatism, I'm going to get Toric lenses, which corrects for this phenomenon. It also equals a healthy bill. Fortunately, we have funds that will mostly cover the cost.
  • I shopped for a couple items after the appointment.
    
  • Mary baked chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
  • I moved compost from the furthest east bin to on top of compost in the furthest west bin, which will give us a place for depositing the waste after butchering 27 chickens. We were planning on starting butchering tonight, but I didn't have enough time to get preparations done, so we'll butcher starting tomorrow night.
    
  • While doing a little squirrel hunting, I watched a barred owl fly from the ground up into a tree just beyond where I hunt. I shot a squirrel out of a tree, but I couldn't find it, even after Mary joined in on the search.
  • Mary checked a pecan on a lower branch. It was a tiny bit early, but the husk came off. Pecan nut picking is nigh.
    

• Wednesday, 9/25: Butchering Postponed
  
  • Mary saw a pair of double-crested cormorants fly to the southwest while walking dogs in the morning.
  • I dropped a squirrel out of a pecan tree, but couldn't find it, again, this morning.
    
  • I cut grass on the trail to the killing cone with the Stihl trimmer fitted with the metal blade. Then I raked up the grass and put it in the east compost bin to use as a cellulose sponge for chicken butchering remains. I then mowed the killing cone trail while Mary operated wheelbarrows moving grass clippings to the compost bin.
    
  • While I had the trimmer in hand, I whacked down weeds and small saplings on the trail to the new deer blind in the north woods, north of machine shed.
  • I also cut down some of the grass between lane to the far garden and near garden north fence. Mary moved that grass to the compost bin. We still need more grass to build a larger compost bin cushion.
    
  • Mary picked Bartlett pears. A couple were bad. She wrapped up eight pears and stored them in a drawer at the top of the stairs. This was a very quiet pear year.
    
  • Mary also picked about a half plastic shopping bag of green beans. She reports more are on the way.
  • Mary picked a few tomatoes and a bunch of ripe hot peppers (see photo, below). The peppers are destined to have sewing thread put through their bases, then hung up in the upstairs south room, where they dry.
    
  • We watched 2018 movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, instead of butchering chickens, because we were too tired to process chickens into the freezer. Mañana is our current motto regarding chicken butchering.

  

  Hot Portugal (red) & Ho Chi Minh (yellow) peppers.

• Thursday, 9/26: Butchering a Third of the Roosters
  • I shot a squirrel in the morning, in-between walking/feeding dogs and letting out chickens. It was very high atop a pecan tree and came down just a few feet in front of me.
    
  • I whacked down the rest of the grass between the trail to the far garden and the north fence of the near garden. I added that to the cellulose cushion in the east compost bin.
    
  • Mary hung up all of the hot peppers that she picked yesterday.
    
  • She also picked about a quarter of grocery bag of green beans.
  • Mary harvested and shucked husks off the rest of the hazelnuts.
    
  • I got the machine shed ready for chicken butchering by hanging up lights, laying out cardboard and three old Mid-Rivers wall calendars under where I hang a hook that I hang chickens from to skin them, and laid out buckets of water where we need them. I also patched up a couple places on the killing cone with aluminum tape.
    
  • I sharpened 10 knives that we use in processing chickens.
    
  • Starting at 8:30 p.m., we butchered nine chickens, or a third of the total 27 that we need to process. They were medium to large in size, but still tender and easy for Mary to cut up. They ate well. Several had large amounts of fat.
  • Stars were out and quite beautiful when we started butchering. By the end, clouds filled the sky. These clouds were part of the weather system associated with Hurricane Helene that was making landfall at that moment as a category 4 storm in Florida.
    
  • I kept hearing an odd, high-pitched chirp in the pecan trees just outside the east end of the machine shed. Then I heard the telltale sound of nuts getting crunched up. Only a squirrel eats nuts with that sound. Mary looked it up and we were hearing flying squirrels. HERE is the sound of a flying squirrel. After identifying the sound, Mary watched a flying squirrels fly from a pecan tree to the maple tree just outside the machine shed.
  • We also heard barred owls, coyotes, and disturbed geese through the night. Mice were scurrying about inside the machine shed, too. On one trip to the killing cone, we heard something scurrying in the bushes behind us. I looked with a hat light and spotted two yellow eyes in a nearby tree. Then, it turned and we could see that it was a large opossum.
    
  • After cleaning up, we finally got to bed by 4:30 a.m. Hopefully, we can start earlier, tomorrow.
    

• Friday, 9/27: Chicken Butchering Night 2
  
  • I cleaned up buckets after a night of processing chickens. While tossing chicken feet in the north woods, I figured out a direct route through the timber to get to a path I smashed down a week ago to a location where I'll put the aluminum ladder tree stand.
    
  • Mary picked about half a grocery bag of green beans. four large tomatoes, and several sun gold tomatoes.
  • We both took two-hour naps.
  • I resharpened seven knives for butchering.
  • A cloudy day opened up to partly cloudy skies at night.
  • We butchered nine more roosters starting at 8:15 p.m. We finished up at 3:50 and got to bed by 4:45 a.m. It seems like these birds got tougher in just one day. The first three were solid white ones. We think they're White Plymouth Rock chickens. They were big and tough to skin, yet easy for Mary to cut up. They completely filled gallon freezer bags.
  • Even though a north wind blew hard, we still heard the squeaking sound of a flying squirrel. Supposedly, flying squirrels show up well with a blacklight. Mary tried it, but our tiny UV light isn't strong enough. She flashed the blacklight on dried up mushrooms on an elm log next to the woodshed and discovered that they were fluorescent green with fluorescent orange streaks.
  • We butcher three chickens at a time. Between the first and second batches, the bucket under the killing cone that catches blood, was tipped over. We think it was done by an opossum.
  • We watched the Pleiades stars rise in the east, followed by Orion and then the moon. A bright planet, Jupiter, was in the Gemini constellation.
  • I heard a loud bang of something hitting a grain bin roof. In the morning light, we noticed that a dead branch, approximately three inches in diameter, fell out of a pecan tree.
    

• Saturday, 9/28: Chicken Butchering Done!!!
  
  • I shot one squirrel in the morning. It crawled up a very low branch on the other side of the grain bins from me, then appeared just above the grain bin roof, where I got it. When I walked around to the other side of the bin, I noticed the dead branch described in yesterday's blog.
  • I did my morning chicken butchering clean up routine while Mary picked green beans.
  • Again, we each took a two-hour nap.
  • I resharpened eight knives used for butchering. These large chickens dull the knives while skinning them and cutting the meat into pieces.
  • We butchered the last nine roosters, starting at 8 p.m. and ending at 4 a.m. Stars were shining brightly through most of the night. There was only a slight north breeze. We heard flying squirrels, barred owls, and coyotes. We're guessing a raccoon scurried down a nearby black walnut tree and ran off on one of our visits to the killing cone. Two of the chickens were big and tough Delaware birds. Mary says if they were humans, they'd be shaving right now. This batch of chickens would have been 16 weeks old as of Monday, 9/30. We should have butchered them last week, when they were probably not as mature, but it was too hot at night back then. Our freezer is stuffed with another year's supply of chicken meat. Now, we can get some much needed sleep.
  • We're noticing small puffball mushrooms all over the yard.
    

• Sunday, 9/29: Taking Out Coop Wall
  
  • I cleaned up butchering buckets for the last time and put away lights, extension cords, and ladders. When I tossed chicken feet into the north woods, I noticed that only four feet were left from the past two days of throwing them in that location. Some critter enjoyed them.
    
  • Mary swept and mopped in the house.
  • I took down the wall that separated the hens from the chicks inside the chicken coop. I moved wall parts into the machine shed. I intended to also clean out the coop, but there wasn't enough time for that. Beside, I was beat tired.
    
  • Jasmine, the lone pullet from this year's chicks, seems to be blending in with the older hens. Of course, there's a pecking order that the flock establishes with the new addition, but it eventually works out. The hens and Leo, our rooster, are enjoying getting into the large north chicken yard. They weren't allowed in there while the cockerels were around. Today was their first time in that area in a couple months.
  • Plato's eyes are back to normal. He's eating like a champ. His limp is improving and Plato's disposition is normal and happy.